Just a few short minutes later, Enrie studied the Empress Otyeriotanerio final outfit while she watched her team and Pelnyen leave the downstairs. She could hug Saydrie! At the very least she owed him an apology for that glare.

When she was certain that they were gone, she hurried furtively into the All-Thought section. There were three books she wanted – ones she’d looked at the night before but not picked up, considering she had been trying to butter Pelnyen up, not discredit him.

She paused between the All-Thought school and the treaties. It wouldn’t hurt to spend a little time reading treaties too, would it? Equal time with the Philosophy work?

She didn’t try too hard to talk herself out of it. She was feeling the effects of last night’s late Philosophy studying and she was already sick unto death of the All-Thought school. It was such inane drivel, it was no surprise Pelnyen liked it.

She grabbed four of the oldest books she could find on treaty law and hurried back to the Textiles section. She didn’t put it by Pelnyen not to sneak back to check on her.

There was a lot to read. There was always a lot to read in Edally; Edally seemed to be built on the idea of assigning as much reading as was humanly possible and then ten percent more, just to encourage students to be super-human. Enrie laid out three pieces of paper for notes and began working: a few minutes on Grandma-Empress Otyeriotanerio, a few more on the concept of Humanic Aether as it applied to All-Thought, and then some notes on ancient Calenyena treaties.

For a land that only had three nations in recorded history and had only one for the past five hundred years,Calenta had a lot of treaties. The records showed that over two-thirds of them had been broken at some point or another — cease-fires, peace treaties, non-interference agreements — but they were still important, so her teachers and her parents told her, because of their historical significance.

Of course, it would do her no good to read the actual treaties. Lovdyo had gone looking for them, and he probably wouldn’t have been so distressed if he hadn’t done due diligence searching for the document. He’d said he couldn’t find a reference, but he had to have found something, or he’d never have known something was missing.

She could, Enrie realized, just ask Lovdyo. But getting him alone – away from his roommates, away from his team – would be tricky.

Besides, ferreting out the answer on her own was more fun.

It was on the third read-over of the same page that Enrie found it. The document was written in an older form of Calenyen, the letters drawn with a brush instead of a pen, so it took a few readings to get all of the meaning.

“…called the Treaty of the Coffee, a document signed in the Arran city of Federent…”

Enrie wrote the line in her notes, then turned back to the document she’d been reading.

It’s cheating if they’re collaborating on their papers. Here they’re just collaborating to distract the obnoxious and entirely-too-intrusive Pelnyen while Enrie researches the topic. That’s /at least/ as legitimate as the professor’s behavior.